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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25937869">A Good Excuse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/big_scrunch/pseuds/big_scrunch'>big_scrunch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Team Fortress 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, Other, Reader-Insert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:56:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25937869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/big_scrunch/pseuds/big_scrunch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A little drabble about a pining reader<br/>Written for a good friend &lt;3</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Engineer (Team Fortress 2)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Good Excuse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Thanks for the hand, [y/n],” Dell said as you adjusted the index finger of Gunslinger, making sure it could bend right. “No pun intended, of course.”</p><p>You chuckled absentmindedly, absorbed in repairing his hand. It was a little unsettling to be removing, cleaning, and reattaching his fingers but… it was a valid excuse to hold his hand. But you still didn’t understand how this unbelievable machine worked, and you started turning his hand in yours in an attempt to solve the mystery.</p><p>“Somethin’ wrong with it?” he asked with concern, his goggled face so close to your hand as he examined the prosthetic that you felt his hot dry breaths.</p><p>“Nah, I was just trying to figure out how it works.”</p><p>He hopped up next to you on his worktable, not moving his mechanical hand from your gentle hold. He opened a panel on his red-painted wrist to reveal small cables and blinking lights. “Y’see here, pumpkin?” His voice and face were brimming with enthusiasm as he guided your fingers to the tech with his own living one.</p><p>“Are those… sensors?”</p><p>“Bingo. But you would <em>think</em> there’s nothin’ here to sense, right?”</p><p>“Well, I guess getting a hand taken off might not take off all of the hand associated muscles…?”</p><p>“You’re smart as a whip! Alright, now feel this.” He put your fingertips on his inner wrist and kept his hand over yours. You could feel his accelerating pulse as well as his warm calloused hand, and then the muscles and tendons in his arm moved about subtly, causing the fingers of the metal appendage to open and close. You didn’t even notice when he stopped. Between dismantling and rebuilding his right hand, the half intentional touches, and now, with your hand over his heartbeat and under his protective palm… you were intoxicated by the intimacy of the moment.</p><p>“Uh, [y/n]?”</p><p>“Oh! What? Hm?” Your cheeks grew hot as you locked eyes with him. Well, locked eyes as much as you could.</p><p>“Actually, nevermind.” He looked startled for a moment, then set his jaw and started fiddling with Gunslinger, but you could tell he wasn’t actually doing much of anything and was just trying to seem busy.</p><p>“No, what is it?”</p><p>“Nothin’, was just gonna tell you that I can finish Gunslinger by myself now, thanks for the help!” Even when half his face was hidden, he was a bad liar.</p><p>“No, what were you gonna say?”</p><p>“I—” he sighed, frustrated, his cheeks growing pink, “I was just gonna say, I appreciate the help, but if you just want to spend some time together, you don’t need an excuse for it.”</p><p>You laughed nervously. “Good, I was running out of excuses.”</p><p>“I was too. Gunslinger wasn’t even due for a deep clean for another week.”</p><p>“And… the together time that… we theoretically might be spending…” You trained your eyes on the floor. “Is it the kind of time that… I can still hold your hand during?”</p><p>Wordlessly he took your hand in his non-robotic one. “Promise?” he laughed.</p>
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